


Drumbeats

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 09:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14257773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: Giles returns home and finds someone waiting on his doorstep. This is set post-series and Giles is back in England





	Drumbeats

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Nothing to frighten the horses  
> Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy et al, own everything. I own nothing.  
> Comments and feedback are cuddled and called George  
> Beta extraordinaire: thismaz

It’s like remembering the lyrics to a song you thought long forgotten. Like remembering a phrase, then a chorus and suddenly the whole song is running through your head. It’s a melody curling around your brain and setting up home for the next day, or week, or year. It’s the same seeing someone after years away. Remembering the angle of a chin, the slope of a shoulder and the tilt of a head. Remembering the paleness of skin and the colour of eyes and suddenly, the pieces coalescing into a whole - into a person. Into someone whose existence you’d almost forgotten.

******

“Oz?” Even the name sounds unpractised on Giles’ tongue.

“Giles.” Oz stretches his legs out in front of him. He makes the worn sandstone steps that lead up to Giles’ front porch look as comfortable as an easy chair. He’s wearing faded black jeans, hiking boots and a Bob Marley t-shirt. There’s a duffle and a jacket on the ground at his feet.

“This is unexpected.” Giles takes a step forward, then stops again. The farmyard cobbles feel slippery under his feet. He’s sure it’s the cobbles. “Not unwelcome, obviously, but yes, unexpected.”

Oz smiles. “Unexpected works.”

Another thing Giles has forgotten. How economical Oz is. “I’m afraid Willow isn’t here. She’s in South America at the moment.”

“Living La Vida Loca?”

“Hopefully taking down a rather nasty coven in Brazil, but yes, probably a bit of the other as well.”

Oz nods and the blue black of his hair glints in the late afternoon sun. “Any day with a Ricky Martin moment is a good day.”

“Yes well, I’m afraid in my advanced years, my hips aren’t quite as mobile as Mr Martin’s.”

Oz leans back, his elbows resting on the next step up. If possible, he looks even more relaxed. “I bet you’ve still got some moves on you, Giles.”

“Thank you.” Any other reply seems impolite and politeness is the armour of Englishmen everywhere, especially on their own front step. “The reassurance I’m not yet in my dotage aside, it still doesn’t alter the fact that Willow isn’t here.” He pauses. “That sounded churlish, didn’t it? I’m not trying to get rid of you, merely stating the fact.”

“I got that,” Oz says. “Didn’t come to see Willow.” He cocks his head. It’s hard to know if he’s thinking what to say next or resting his voice. Giles counts to 10 in Sumerian before filling the silence.

“Xander, then? I’m afraid he is also absent.”

“Africa. I ran into him in Kenya. He says ‘Hi’.” Oz waves his hand and for an instant Giles sees Xander in the movement, extravagant and expressive, before the hand withdraws and it’s Oz again, expressive in a different way in his own contained motion.

Giles takes off his glasses, pulls a cloth from his pocket and cleans them. It’s a stereotypical move, but somehow it feels like a connection to the past and an unexpected present. Even without them on he’s pretty sure Oz is smiling knowingly. He wonders how much is Oz and how much is the wolf, assessing future prey. Strangely, it’s not a particularly disturbing thought. “He usually just uses the phone. A personal message seems a little much, however engaging the messenger.” Giles feels like he’s channeling Xander – when in doubt, talk.

Oz half shrugs. A whole shrug will probably expend too much energy. “I was coming anyway,” he says. “The ‘Hi’ is incidental.”

Giles puts his glasses back on. He’s right, Oz is smiling like he knows what Giles is thinking. “I don’t understand.”

“I heard you were back to England. Thought it was time I said hi, myself.”

“So you and Xander had a fortunate confluence of sentiment as well as locality?”

“Something like that,” Oz replies. “You going to stand there all day looking tall, or you going to take a load off?”

“I don’t remember you being this bossy back in Sunnydale.”

“I was undercover in Sunnydale.”

“That explains a lot. I assume the constant changes of hair colour was to stop people discovering your secret identity?” Oz finishes his shrug in reply and Giles eases himself down onto the step beside him. “Sitting on my own doorstep. How very un-British of me. What will the neighbours say?”

Oz fishes in his pocket and pulled out a joint, lighting up with the polish that speaks of long practice. “They’ll say, there sits Rupert Giles, a man who is comfortable in his own domain and who doesn’t care what others think of him.”

Giles takes the joint from him and inhales. Not surprisingly, it’s excellent stuff. “And you think that’s an admirable quality? Being someone who doesn’t care what others think?”

“Life’s too short to worry about what other people think. Be mindful of them, sure. Don’t be spiteful, greedy or cruel, but listen to your own drum.”

Giles stretches out his legs. Not surprisingly they are longer than Oz’s. “And your drum led you here?”

“My drum led me here a long time ago. I just couldn’t hear its music too well and other people’s instruments were loud.”

Giles inhales again, savouring the smoke, before handing the joint back to Oz. “I see. And now they’re not?”

“Now they’re not.”

The first joint leads to a second, they trade back and forth and sit on the step, in silence, watching the shadows start to fall as the sun moves round. It’s peaceful. Restful even. Giles finds himself relaxing, letting his eyelids droop slowly and the worries of the Council melt in a way that’s only partly to do with the weed. 

“How’s your drum, Giles?” Oz says

Startled, Giles opens his eyes and considers the question. “A little frayed around the edges,” he says eventually. “But I believe it still has a few years of playing left in it.”

“But your Keith Moon days are behind you?”

“Just as well my Keith Moon days are behind me, or we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.”

“So what’s your drum beat these days – Cozy Powell – you still dancing with the devil?”

“Our devils tend to be more literal than metaphorical, as you know. But that said, my dance these days is a little more controlled than full on. Perhaps more Ginger Baker than John Bonham.”

Oz nods. “Baker is a classic. Though I’m pretty sure you could do a full-on Bonham if you felt the need.”

“Possibly. I’ve not thought of it in quite those terms.” Giles contemplates the remains of the joint between his fingers. “Having analysed my drumming status, turn around is fair play. What about you?”

“Fair question. Depends on my mood. One day, it’s a classic Neil Peart smack down. Other days I’m all about the Sheila E rhythm. And sometimes I’ve got to give it up to Stuart Copeland because man, there are times you just need a little bit of a jazz moment in the midst of all the pounding.”

“Are we still talking about drummers?” Giles asks.

“Are we?” Oz replies.

“I’m not sure we ever were.”

“You’ve always been a smart man, Giles.”

Oz takes the joint out of Giles' hand and pinches it out. He sticks it behind his ear. It’s a graceful movement, expertly judged, no extra effort spent. He leans over, a half smile on his lips and kisses Giles once. “Want to make some noise?”

******

It’s funny how the music takes you. You think your jazz days, your rock days, your punk days are behind you. Then suddenly there’s a song, a lyric, a melody that echoes from days gone by and it sums up a mood, a feeling, an emotion that feels like the past and the present and a possible future you’d never contemplated, distilled into a beat that you wonder how you’d ever forgotten.

Music’s like that, Giles thinks. He looks at Oz and smiles.

People are like that too.


End file.
